Matt

I am an experienced and professional Private Tutor who teaches in the South of England. I have degrees in English Literature and History; I specialise in all the humanities subjects: English Literature, English Language, History, Religious Studies and Psychology.

New to this site, however I have years of experience and dozens of 5 star reviews on other tuition websites, which I am happy to send you a link to.

I have a great deal of experience teaching content from all of the major exams boards, for English Language and Literature: AQA, Edexcel/Pearson, WJEC/Eduqas, for History: OCR, Edexcel and AQA. I also teach Cambridge iGCSEs (for English and History) and teach English as a second language (ESL) to foreign students and Maths at KS2.

I have a passion for teaching; I love interacting with students and seeing them develop their skills, expand their knowledge, and realise their potential. I try to immediately establish a strong rapport with my students, and I aim to ensure that my sessions are very engaging and interactive.

Typically, my students improve by at least 3 grades after a year with me, although there have been some higher and more impressive leaps in grades.

Tutoring Experience

I have worked as a GCSE Examiner between 2019-2024 Eduqas, OCR, and Cambridge International iGCSE exam boards, so consequently know the mark schemes very well and what is needed to improve answers and achieve certain grades.

I cover material from Key Stage 1 all the way up to A Level and Degree material. I have been teaching for 6 years and have taught material from all the major exam boards (AQA, Edexcel/Pearson, OCR, WJEC/Eduqas).

Teach preparation for 11+, 13+, and King's Scholarship exams, as well as International students iGCSE and S.A.Ts.

I have taught many students with dyslexia, dyspraxia, dysgraphia, ADD, ADHD, slow processing issues and various learning challenges and have found a way to always engage them in the sessions and keep them interested in the subject.

Tutoring Approach

I always look to tailor a plan specifically for each of my students' learning needs and monitor and track their progress. I set weekly assignments which I always mark and provide feedback.

As part of my GCSE English sessions, we have weekly vocabulary lists to incorporate into our repertoire, in addition to selecting a (non-curriculum) fiction book to read for pleasure (yes, for fun!). I believe it is paramount to have a variety of texts read in preparation for the creative writing component of the exam, and I strongly encourage reading an array of genres.

For GCSE English Literature, it entirely depends on the texts your school are studying, however we always look to explore the context of the book and how the themes of the book can be linked to its context. This can often allow students to understand the text in an entirely new dimension and make studying a nineteenth-century novel a lot more interesting. The Literature texts I have taught for GCSE are: Jekyll and Hyde, Frankenstein, Dracula, Christmas Carol, Jane Eyre, An Inspector Calls, Lord of the Flies, Blood Brothers, Journey's End, Animal Farm, Never Let Me Go, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Tempest and Twelfth Night.

For History, it depends which modules your school are studying (they vary significantly with each school/exam board), however my approach is to engage my students in the subject and aim to bring history to life! We look at a variety of source material and learn the important skills of source analysis. I try to run my sessions in the style of a seminar - we will have a discussion topic and look to explore how far we agree with that view based on the evidence whilst learning how to utilise second-order historical concepts in our writing. I don't believe students learn from staring at a text book, so most of my sessions are very interactive. Last year, I was lucky enough to tutor students from the same school/class and was able to run joint seminar sessions where we debated historical events - with great success.